Paul Hoch on Assassination Research

Winnowing the Wheat and the Chaff

Unlike high-profile conspiracy authors such as Mark Lane, Robert Groden, and David Lifton, Paul Hoch is essentially unknown to the American
public. But among the small fraternity of assassination researchers, he is a highly respected figure.

Good morning; thank you for coming. I'm pleased that I was invited to
be on this
panel; for one thing, I am not very active as a researcher now. I try to
help other
researchers, and I've already had the pleasure of seeing some of you in
person for the
first time. I help mainly by being an informed skeptic. I understand that
raising
questions about other people's work is relatively easy, but I know from
experience how
difficult it is to understand the available record and to get into the
hidden record.

I am at a disadvantage talking this early in the symposium, but I
intend to be
frank about where I stand after nearly thirty years, off and on, of
research.
Primarily, I want to make a point to non-buffs and to new buffs in the
audience:
There is a lot of diversity and uncertainty among the critics.

If anyone wants to set up, as a test, the denunciation of Clay Shaw or
of the
Single Bullet Theory or of Burt Griffin, I won't pass it. And I know there
are many
other buffs who share some of my doubts about what seems to be the new
orthodoxy.

Doug Carlson suggested that this panel include a review of the public
record, in
the context of the science of independent research. Thinking of the state
of the case
in the public mind, my first reaction was, what's research got to do with
it? The
success of Oliver Stone's film and the subsequent movement to "free the
files," was
built on facts and the work of many researchers, but it seems to really be
about
issues that go far beyond the events of November 22  the nature of the
press, of the
government, of our society.

In this context, my key point about documentary research is that it
may not be able to solve the case, but it certainly can make wrong
solutions go away.
There are plenty of allegations floating around which would not stand up to
scrutiny
based on the existing public record. One complication, of course, is that
I'm not
sure which of the allegations would go away. But I am confident that many
would.

What results can we expect? Burt Griffin made a good point in his House
Committee testimony in 1978: "consider the possible reality that under the
American
system of civil liberties and the requirement of proof beyond a reasonable
doubt, that
it is virtually impossible to prosecute or uncover a well-conceived and
well-executed
conspiracy." (5 HSCA 480) So the ambitions of documentary research 
which is just
one of the tools of such an inquiry  probably should be quite modest.

I think that the most promising areas for research  in the existing
files as
well as the new ones  are the facts of the shooting (particularly the
medical
evidence), Oswald (especially what the agencies knew about him), and the
political
context (particularly Cuba).

First, keep an eye out for the innocent
explanation; then test it. Remember, sources make mistakes, FBI agents
make mistakes,
even researchers make mistakes. And some sources lie.

I hope we will make some progress this weekend in planning to deal
with new
material. Of course I would like to have everything on indexed CD ROM's.
But we
learned in 1978, from the work of Carl Oglesby and his AIB colleagues on
the FBI
files, that selection of interesting documents is a key step. Mark Zaid
has put
together some ideas along these lines. We're in the position of
paleontologists
coming across an enormous find which might consist of real bones. There is
a lot of
junk in the files.

Tips for analyzing documents: First, keep an eye out for the innocent
explanation; then test it. Remember, sources make mistakes, FBI agents
make mistakes,
even researchers make mistakes. And some sources lie.

Things that are deleted may not be important. Not everything put in an
assassination file is relevant to the assassination. For example: Mark
Lane said
that Priscilla Johnson was a suspect in the assassination, no doubt
referring to a
certain document where, if the case caption is undeleted, it is clear that
she was a
suspect in a case of potential KGB recruitment. Years ago, it became clear
than many
people, such as Igor Vaganov, were involved in shady activities in Dallas
that
probably had nothing to do with the assassination.

In short, most of the apparent evidence will turn out not to be true,
even if it
is not obviously false. That is certainly the typical experience of those
of us who
have worked as scientists.

Anyone who spends time in the FBI files develops his own filters for
detecting
probable junk. For example, letters from citizens which are typed in all
capitals 
single spaced, with no margins  or handwritten with about ten words per
page. I
suspect that a useful measure of the plausibility of an allegation could be
derived
from the percentage of well-known names. If a source claims to have met
with David
Ferrie, Allen Dulles, and Fidel Castro in Jack Ruby's nightclub, I'll go on
to the
next document. Any post-Garrison story with Clay Shaw in it starts with a
heavy
burden of skepticism to overcome. I now put Roscoe White in the same
category.

Suggestions on assessing the credibility of physical evidence: Most
important,
remember that only one thing happened. It is no longer enough to just come
up with
leads and say they are interesting or should be investigated. I used to do
that a lot
myself. We need to filter out charges that don't hold up, as much as we can.

The technical work of the House Committee had quite an impact on me.
The key
fact is that specific items of Dealey Plaza conspiracy evidence have tended
to get
weaker over the years. This has been a surprise, naturally
underappreciated 
especially by newer buffs and non-technical buffs.

I
suspect that a useful measure of the plausibility of an allegation could be
derived
from the percentage of well-known names. If a source claims to have met
with David
Ferrie, Allen Dulles, and Fidel Castro in Jack Ruby's nightclub, I'll go on
to the
next document.

The big arguable exception is the medical and autopsy evidence, and I
could never
fully accept the official version of the shots until the anomalies in this
area are
more adequately dealt with.

We could argue at length about the imperfections in the House
Committee's work,
and in the work of the National Academy of Sciences panel which rebutted the
acoustics. As some of you know, I've done my share, particularly on the
acoustics.

But the fact remains that the House Committee took a stab at the tests
the
critics wanted  not completely, and not perfectly, but we expected that
any one of
the tests would demolish the WC reconstruction  neutron activation analysis,
trajectory analysis. And they didn't.

Many people seem to agree with John Judge, who has said that we know
where the
shots came from, they came from the Pentagon. I don't think we know nearly
enough
about Dealey Plaza to make a jump like that.

The single bullet theory is not a joke. Despite its well-known flaws,
the Warren
Commission/House Committee reconstruction may be in better shape than any
other single
detailed reconstruction. At least, it has to be taken seriously.

To me, a key lesson from the state of the physical evidence is that
much of the
other conspiracy evidence would be weakened if subject to comparable scrutiny.

Wallace Milam has said that we have identified twelve of the three
gunmen. We
need to think what this means about our collective methodology. Are we the
men who
know too much?

On interviewing witnesses: I don't have any experience worth
mentioning, so I'll
make just one point: Watch out for principals who have become buffs, and
are basing
conclusions on information outside their areas of direct knowledge or
expertise. If
John Rosselli, for example, knew there was a shot from the knoll, it might
not have
been from inside knowledge, but because some of his friends, like many
others, heard
Mark Lane's stump speech. It seemed very significant that Dr. George
Burkley said he
thought there was a conspiracy, but the most I could find out was that he
thought
Oswald had more money than could be accounted for. One of the Dallas
doctors, as I
recall, thinks the head snap and simple physics constitute irrefutable
proof of a shot
from the front. They don't.

Suggestions on assessing the credibility of verbal testimony: I'll
offer a
corollary to Griffin's statement: If you recognize that conspiracies do
happen but
don't have a good methodology, you will end up believing in a big
conspiracy behind
any major political crime.

Watch out for principals who have become buffs, and
are basing
conclusions on information outside their areas of direct knowledge or
expertise. If
John Rosselli, for example, knew there was a shot from the knoll, it might
not have
been from inside knowledge, but because some of his friends, like many
others, heard
Mark Lane's stump speech.

Do I know what constitutes a good methodology? Not really. A couple
of obvious
points: Go to primary sources whenever possible. Many books are
unreliable on
details. For an example, again I'll pick on Mark Lane since he's not here:
Lane
accurately quotes a memo by Melvin Eisenberg as saying that Warren said
that LBJ
"convinced him that this was an occasion on which actual conditions had to
override
general principles." But it is obvious from the memo that the general
principle being
set aside is not Warren's "belief system and his sense of justice," as Lane
says, but
the principle that a sitting Supreme Court justice should not take an
outside job like
this. When people misinterpret documents that are readily available, how
can you
trust them on sources that are not easily checkable?

What about pitfalls? Watch out for allegations which look too good to
throw out,
for example because they seem to make the connection between Kennedy's
enemies and the
assassination  that is, to provide the closure everyone hopes to find.
For example,
some people latched on to the FBI document mentioning George Bush of the
CIA without
considering if the George Bush would be referred to in that fashion, and
whether the
contact described was that important or sinister anyhow.

David Lifton pointed out to me that it has gotten hard to pin
researchers down
about sloppy analysis, now that their fallback position can be that what
they are
looking for is a metaphor or a myth.

Sometimes it seems that the stories which catch on in the public mind
are those
with particular value as metaphor, or those which are pushed vigorously by
some buffs.
Don't assume that the best leads are the ones which have been waved around
most
prominently.

An example of a story which never caught on: I discovered that the
lawyer who
sent a telegram to Oswald in jail, offering to represent him, came from a
civil-libertarian law firm here in Chicago which had defended Sam Giancana
against alleged
FBI harassment. I learned this quite by accident; the lawyer mentioned it
to me.
When I circulated this story, I played this connection down. But someone
else could
easily have picked it up and made a big deal of it, and then it would be
one of those
things that everyone knows is important.

Be careful not to give evidence a value proportional to the difficulty
you had in
finding it. Not everything being withheld is relevant. Realize how hard
it is to
discard as unimportant something you've spent many hours to get, but that's
what good
journalists and scientists have to do all the time.

Partial confirmation can be misleading. For example, Henry Hurt
confirmed  with
some difficulty  that a fire described by Robert Easterling had occurred,
which may
have made Hurt too inclined to believe Easterling's fantastic stories about
the
assassination.

Of course, one problem with concentrating on these pitfalls is that
you might
miss good allegations that look bad. For example, when I got the
Sibert-O'Neill
report from the Archives in 1966 and circulated it, Lifton was perhaps the
only person
not to discard the strange reference to "surgery of the head area." I
don't know what
it all means but I think he was right not to pass over it as obviously an FBI
reporting error.

Watch out for allegations which look too good to throw out, for example
because they seem to make the connection between Kennedy's enemies and the assassination — that
is, to provide the closure everyone hopes to find.

You may recall the story in John Davis' book about the mayor of
Darien, Georgia,
who said he saw Oswald getting money in what turned out to be a mob-linked
restaurant.
I sent that document to John to show him that another allegation we were
discussing
was not that persuasive to me, because such stories were so common. But
this one
turned out to get better, not worse, as you looked into it.

One funny story: I remember Robert Ranftel doing a late-night radio
talk show
and telling several conspiracy-minded callers that their favorite stories
had been
discredited, or didn't make sense anyhow. Then one caller started talking
about his
aunt having photographed Oswald in Russia, and got the same treatment; I
was rolling
my eyes and hoping that Robert would remember that, yes, some tourist did
photograph
Oswald.

Are we critics or researchers or skeptics or what? Being critical
used to mean
questioning the Warren Report. At first, document research was easy 
check out their
footnotes, ask for the Sibert-O'Neill report. It's harder now to ask tough
questions
about the beliefs of the anti-Warren Report majority and about the work of
those who
are building on the momentum of 29 years of research.

The critical community may be at a crossroads. Will the revived
public interest
in the case turn our research effort into something that belongs on shows
like "Hard
Copy," along with UFO abductions?

I expect interesting discussions this weekend on unity among the
buffs. Avoiding
divisiveness on tactical grounds makes more sense for a minority movement
than for
people taking a view which is endorsed by an overwhelming percentage of the
public.

We are not guaranteed progress towards the truth by adhering to the
standards of
science, or journalism, or law  certainly not law. But those standards have
justifications and are certainly more applicable than the standards of
political
activism or filmmaking in getting at what actually happened.

Do we want to reach people who are not already "pro-conspiracy"
(particularly
reporters, academics, people in government)? I personally do. How? My
gut feeling
is to make it clear that they don't have to pick between two sides: a flat
no-conspiracy viewpoint and a unified community of conspiratorialists (the
most vocal of
whom appear to be preaching to the choir). I would emphasize that the
no-conspiracy
side is not where you find most of the people who are seriously asking valid
questions. If there is a basis for unity, it is a skeptical methodology,
not any
particular conclusions or interpretations of the evidence.